Is Psychotherapy a Farce?

Bernard Wisser: I guess if things and events are illusions and nothing happens by choices, even if knowing and awareness are always present, then no one can be held responsible for anything. Moreover, if one can't choose, then psychotherapy must be a farce because, as I sort of understand psychotherapy, its purpose is to make someone aware of their conditioned or programmed patterns of perception and behavioral responses, also, to bring their attention (although one can't choose what to attend to according to you) to their actual feelings/impulses in the present so that they can make better behavioral choices. Oh, wait. I forgot. That would be a learning, and there is no one there to learn.

So when you are sitting with a client in therapy, you are not there and not making choices, and the client is not there to end their suffering by learning something about themselves and their ideas of reality, which the absolutist model sort of denies is possible.

You know I love you, Robert, and I have come to some of the same ontological (for want of a better term) conclusions as you, but I can't operate from that absolute position you are espousing, for that absolute type of non-conceptual approach it seems brings us right back to an extremely cognitive approach to life.

One is working when one meditates, although you may call the work letting go, but, in my experience, there is nothing in the growing life that is not a result of letting go/not letting go, and it's sort of spinning one's wheels to keep transmitting wisdom when choice does not exist, effort is useless (and I have experienced that paradoxical effortless effort) and learning is a misnomer.

I have the same problem with your transmission, which I am sure involves inner effort (yes, I know inner/outer is a no-no), as I have with Krishnamurti, although I have come to the same ultimate conclusions as both of you guys. Somewhere, once having reached those conclusions, one has to go into that empty space, dear friend, and let the heart have a big say in how to transmit that which may be helpful.

Robert: Bernard-- I love you too.

Things are not as dire as you are painting them. Yes, praise and blame, I say, are misconceptions rooted in the false idea that one day, a “person” is born and is forever accountable for every thought and behavior. But in the milieu of psychotherapy, if the client sees things in those terms, I must respect that, for it is the client’s worldview, after all, that constitutes the material of the matter, not mine.

Sometimes, a client will experience what you call going “into that empty space,” which you and I agree is a weight off your shoulders. But even without that blessed event, the therapist’s spacious listening can relieve the client of much guilt and shame, wordlessly and silently—that’s my experience with it, anyway.

I am not saying that anything is a no-no, Bernard. There are no no-nos. Whatever is felt, thought, perceived, and believed seems real to the mind apprehending it. I would never dispute that.

My words are not an argument, proof, or denial of anything but a simple personal confession. This expression is not drawn from books and teachers but emerges freshly as it does.

After being drawn into this non-duality arena more or less by chance (a couple of interviews, et voila!) I saw that quotations from supposed “masters” comprised a large part of the daily conversation. To me, parroting dead masters or their exponents feels like a dry, moribund procedure indeed. It's far from inspiring. Speak for yourself, I say. If you can’t or won’t, you will always be a disciple, an aspirant, an emulator.

In discussing my experience of this immense mystery we call life or being, I speak as an ordinary person who lives an ordinary life, does ordinary work, etc. I’m no master, and nothing I say should be taken as a rejection of ordinary experience. I am all for just living naturally and participating in whatever arises.

Bernard: You just said what I knew about you, Robert, but I thought it was important for you to clarify it, which you have just done here so well. Thank you for taking the trouble to answer my comment. I do get tired of “spiritual” shoppers spouting other people's words when all they have truly experienced and gotten high on are the words and not the experiences the words signify. By the way, I, too, speak only of those things I have experienced myself, although I might have read or heard about them first from some teacher.

Robert: Thanks, Bernard. Yes, most of us have heard these things spoken or read them in books. Tao Te Ching, Diamond Sutra, and Heart Sutra—those three, taken together, say much about emptiness. Lao Tzu and the Buddha were amazing poets, or at least the poetry attributed to them is amazing.

But they are gone, and cannot reply to questions. That is why it feels important that ordinary living humans like you and me affirm and share our understanding.